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Lead World Cup 2017: Marcello Bombardi and Janja Garnbret win in Chamonix

The second stage of the Lead World Cup 2017 was won last night at Chamonix by Marcello Bombardi from Italy and Janja Garnbret from Slovenia.

Marcello Bombardi an Italian legend at Chamonix! In his first-ever World Cup Finals, the 23-year-old climber climbed to the top of the route and won his first ever Lead World Cup event. Bombardi’s victory came as no great surprise - in the European Climbing Championship at Campitello a fortnight ago he placed 7th and is evidently in great shape - but last night Bombardi demonstrated his class and, above all, his nerves of steel in the exciting but - it has to said - too easy men’s finals.

Bombardi surely knew this right from the outset, that the first athlete in the competition Romain Desgranges had topped out as he was accompanied by the huge cheers of enormous crowd. It was home-favourite Desgranges who predicted other tops, and he wasn’t wrong: Japan’s Keiichiro Korenaga and Yuki Hada also clipped the anchor. Unlike Desgranges and Hada though, Bombardi and Korenaga were perfectly paired - top in the finals, top in the semifinals and tops on both qualifying routes - and so Bombardi won thanks to his two days of perfect climbing which culminated in a lightening fast finale: a mere 4 minutes and 16 seconds to reach the top, compared to 5 minutes and 28 seconds that Korenaga needed. And what about the other 4 finalists? Perhaps each top that was heard in isolation added even more pressure, and in the end Loïc Timmermans and Sean McColl fell just below the last moves. As did Stefano Ghisolfi, provisional first after the semi-finals and the last out therefore. He climbed quickly and convincingly but then, up on the headwall, fumbled and fell at the last hurdle to finish 7th overall.

"It was absolutely incredible ..." Bombardi told planetmountain.com, and unsurprisingly so as winning in Chamonix is obviously something special. In order to relive an Italian victory here one has to go all the way back to July 2007 and Flavio Crespi who, two years earlier, had won the 2005 Lead World Cup. And in order to relive another Italian victory in the Lead World Cup all one has to do is look back to 2016, when Stefano Ghisolfi sealed his second career win in China.

But this morning it’s all about Bombardi and his fabulous night below Mont Blanc. How did he experience those moments, we immediately asked him, "I wasn’t nervous," he replied, "because I didn’t have any expectations. Just being in the final was a great achievement already and my goal was simply to have fun and enjoy the show." But being there, above all those spectators, isn’t an every day occurrence. "At first I was a bit nervous because of all those people and the atmosphere of Chamonix but as I climbed I started to relax… and just concentrated on the climbing."

As for the female competition, after her easy victory at Villars a week ago Janja Garnbret from Slovenia eased to the top in Chamonix. South Korea’s Jain Kim and Belgium’s Anak Verhoeven topped out, too, but the three were separated on countback. They were followed by Tina Johnsen Hafsaas (4th), Jessica Pilz (5th), Julia Chanourdie (6th), Mia Krampl (7th) and Ievgeniia Kazbekova (8th).

27.11.2016Janja Garnbret and Domen Škofič win Lead World Cup 2016 in KranjThe last stage of the Climbing Lead World Cup 2016, held on 26 and 27 November at Kranj in Slovenia, was won by Anak Verhoeven and Sebastian Halenke. Akiyo Noguchi and Domen Skofic placed second, ahead of Janja Garnbret and Jacob Schubert. Slovenians Janja Garnbret and Domen Škofič secured the overall World Cup 2016 title.